


Restless

by Scorpius_Wears_Short_Skirts



Series: YCTH!Verse [7]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Demon True Forms, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Intrusive Thoughts, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Married Life, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Sleep Deprivation, Trans Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:55:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scorpius_Wears_Short_Skirts/pseuds/Scorpius_Wears_Short_Skirts
Summary: Alastor rarely lets himself actually sleep, but Angel knows the right conditions to help.
Relationships: Alastor/Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel)
Series: YCTH!Verse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569163
Comments: 25
Kudos: 642





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody said Alastor occasionally sleeps standing with his eyes open. It was probably a joke but it inspired this shit.
> 
> Also I needed an excuse to write more giant nightmare deer Al.

Alastor had a bit of a testy relationship with sleep. It was boring, for one thing. There was so much he could be doing with the time lost and he hated his body for still needing it even after death had claimed him. It wouldn't be Hell without inconveniences, he supposed. Sure, dismemberment and evisceration was one sort of torture and it was fun to dish out, but real anguish came from milder but constant annoyances. Like being hungry. Like being tired.

Alastor would put off sleep for days at a time, his mind growing manic as it fought off the body's urge to collapse. He almost never actually went to bed unless he was hurt or if Angel requested company. The waking streak would be broken up by small standing naps, lasting only a few minutes at the most. Any noise or touch would rouse him instantly, the deer's instincts giving him a healthy dose of paranoia. Because of this, nearly no one noticed when he'd drifted off.

Nearly no one. Angel had long since learned of his husband's bad habit. If he caught Alastor sleeping, eyes open and upright, he'd go over to wake him with a kiss on his ear or softly call out a string of pet names until Alastor's eyes focused on him. 

"You been up too long, Smiles." Angel scolded gently, teasing. "Gonna go crazy like that."

"I've already been to crazy. Lovely weather there. Warm winters." Alastor mused. "Dark days, bright nights. _'One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other'_ …"

"I thought they drew guns and stabbed each other?" Angel chuckled.

"I believe they were using bayonets so maybe both are correct." Alastor shrugged. "I'm sure everyone's interpretation is a bit different." 

"Yeah." Angel agreed, then took Alastor's hand and pulled him along. "Come on. Let's go home. I'll make you some alfredo and you can take your skin off for a bit."

Alastor agreed, pulling them both through a shadow and into the house under the Radio Tower. It was still disorienting to Angel to be transported in such a way but at least he'd stopped falling on his ass once his feet were somewhere solid again.

"Alright go get in bed." Angel ordered. "I'm breakin' out the big pot."

Alastor grumbled, almost inaudible under the layer of static that diffused as his body reshaped itself into a much larger and quadrupedal form. Angel smiled to see it, far from intimidated by the grinning deer skull. He just liked the fact that Alastor was actually relaxing. He'd even laid down on the floor to watch Angel cook, which wasn't where Angel had told him to go but at this point they were both used to each other doing whatever they wanted and anything that sounded like orders was really just strong suggestion anyway. As long as Alastor was resting in any way at all, the spider counted it as a win.

Angel set a pot to boil and took a seat up on the ridge of Alastor's snout. He kept the obvious face-sitting joke to himself, not wanting to be tossed off. Instead he leaned over, half-laying to reach the red tuft of fur where bone melded into skin high on Alastor's forehead. Alastor didn't want to sleep, but the scritching was very persuasive and soon controlled breathing became a rattling croak of a snore.

Angel grinned, carefully removing himself to return his attention to the pot that was now boiling and had been for several minutes. 

"You got no idea how cute you look." Angel said quietly while he stirred the pasta, talking to Alastor even though he knew the other wasn't listening. _Because_ the other wasn't listening. "Think you're so big and bad. Kinda creepy, I'll admit. Real fuckin' weird. But you're just a big fuckin' spooky sweetheart."

He sang softly as he worked from there, keeping an eye on his husband to try to make sure he stayed asleep. He halfway wanted to drag him to his room where there was the large cushion on the floor, but Alastor was heavy and Angel felt lazy, and grabbing Alastor now would just wake him up. There was also the fact that Alastor could react violently if he was dreaming. Angel had been bitten once and though it was an accident that bothered Alastor far more than it had Angel, neither wanted a repeat experience. So Alastor stayed on the floor even as Angel started setting up to make sauce.

Once the alfredo was done Angel set the stovetop low, keeping it warm without burning it. He set up some shrimp to go with it, pre-cooked already but good enough. He dropped those into the pot, then left the stove to return to Alastor. The deer flinched somewhat when Angel touched him, stirring only to look and see, then relaxing again with a chuff. 

"Oh don't you 'Kh-d-d-d-ff' me. I'll kick your giant ass." Angel teased, imitating the noise as best he could. "Dinner's done."

A fang hooked into the back of Angel's shirt, pulling him between the hole of Alastor's forelegs. He was covered by Alastor's throat and chin before he could escape, not that he wanted to. 

"Dinner can wait, sha." Alastor said drowsily. "Jus' lay with me awhile?" 

"On the floor?" Angel asked, but didn't pass up the chance to cuddle into the large mass of warm black fur.

Alastor snorted, picking himself up while careful not to put a hoof down on Angel. Then he picked Angel up as well in his teeth, and carried him out of the kitchen toward his own room. Between the Radio Demon's teeth was probably the last place anyone should feel safe, but Angel wasn't bothered.

"Food's gonna get goopy." Angel protested as he was dropped on the cushion. 

"Jus' a minute…" Alastor urged. 

Angel sighed and gave in, letting the deer flop onto him heavily. "Watch it. I don't need any broken bones."

"Y' a'right." Alastor huffed, curling around Angel.

By the time they got up the bottom of the pasta had burned to the pot while the top was cold, but that was nothing a goot stir and selective ladelling couldn't fix. The important thing was that Alastor had gotten a full night of sleep where he had actually laid down and hadn't had to waste energy in maintaining his mass in a shape too small for it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes nightmares are just too realistic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a oneshot but i had another sleep-related idea.

"I'm home!" Alastor called as he opened the door to his and Angel's house under the Radio Tower. He had his arm through the handle of a bag, a few odds and ends within.

Nuggets came to greet him at the door, sniffing his shoes to see where he'd been, but that was his only answer. That was alright, as he understood that maybe Angel just didn't hear him so he called out a little louder.

"Sha? Dey didn't have de brand o' dust y' us'ly use but I found some s'posed to smell like cupcakes." He reported, setting the container of dust on the counter before unloading the contents of the rest of the bag; Mustard greens, garlic, bell peppers, a new hacksaw, a roll of duct tape. Not even the boring grey kind but the sort that had little animals printed on it, in this case little caricatures of pigs.

Still there was no answer so Alastor put the groceries away and set to looking for his husband with Nuggets dutifully following. He wasn't in their shared room, his own room/work-set, the bathroom, the basement, or even the roof. Alastor hummed thoughtfully, wondering if Angel had gone back to contact work without telling him. He stepped through a shadow to manifest himself at the street corner near Tally Hoe's that he knew Angel favored. He wasn't there either and when he asked the other sex workers idling there they said they hadn't seen him either.

"Thank Satan for that. He steals all our johns when he shows up." An imp woman huffed. 

A few other likely places were searched before Alastor remembered the Hotel. It was a bit late for Angel's usual counselling appointment but that didn't mean he wasn't visiting their friends there. Alastor could have kicked himself, but instead he let himself fall into another shadow and into the Hotel lobby.

"Charlie!" He called, perhaps a bit too loudly before noticing that she was also in the lobby and so there was no real reason to shout. "Oh you're right here. Is Angel around?" 

"Oh…" Charlie, who had been grinning almost as widely as he, fell into a more solemn expression once she saw him. "Oh Alastor, he's gone."

"Very well. I'll keep sear--"

"No. Squeaker. He's _gone._ " Husk clarified from his spot at the bar. "Bunch of heavenly assholes showed up and said he'd earned a Halo. They took him to Heaven."

"Very funny." Alastor said without a trace of humor in him. "Where is he, really?" 

"It's not a joke." Vaggie said sternly, but Alastor didn't quite believe it until he noticed a tear fall from Charlie's eye.

"We should have called you but Angel's the only one with your number and it just _happened._ " Charlie sniffled, her excitement at her plan actually working being overridden by her empathy tying to Alastor's sudden grief.

"They'll give him back, right?" Alastor reasoned. "He's vulgar and crude and prideful and lustful and awful and _mine._ They won't keep him. They _can't._ "

"If they don't keep him, they'll kill him." Said Vaggie, and the thought of that was terrifying enough that Alastor snapped awake.

**_"NO."_ **

All of the appliances that happened to have microphones or speakers within a five mile radius suddenly surged, overloaded, and broke into staticky pieces all at once. 

"Ugh…" Angel grunted, muffled since his face was smushed into Alastor's hip. He was tangled around one of the deer's legs and shoved sideways under the other with his own legs tucked along where Alastor's side had been before he'd sat up. "Fuckin' warn me if you gotta get sparky. Hate that shit." He whined, unaware of the nightmare the other had just broken out of.

"You were gone." Alastor informed, and the fact he was hiding in his false accent tipped Angel off to the fact that something was very wrong. 

"I'm right here." Angel said, straightening out from his odd cuddling position to pull himself onto Alastor's chest, knowing his weight would be grounding. "I'm not goin' anywhere babe."

"Heaven took you." Alastor continued, laying back and raking his claws through the spider's fur. 

Angel snorted. "I may be a better person than I was but I still ain't a _good_ person. As long as I keep eatin' your cookin' I don't think you got nothin' to worry about." He patted Alastor's face. "Pretty sure God don't want people-eaters. Assuming He's actually there…"

"I'm cookin' ev'ry day." Alastor decided quickly. 

"Fuck no. You can't make pasta worth a shit." Angel groaned, rolling off of Alastor only to pull the deer onto him instead.

"There's always store bought!" Alastor pointed out, settling his face into the fluff of Angel's soft chest.

"I'm gonna fuckin' choke you." Angel threatened playfully. 

"Put it on de list." Alastor shrugged.

"Noted!" Angel said brightly. "Hands, chain, or rope?"

"May's well try 'em all." Alastor decided, impartial. "Dere a diff'rence?"

"Oh yeah." Angel nodded. "Hands are always personal-like, rope can chafe, and chain is cold." He started to wriggle out from under Alastor so he could get up to actually write the new Maybe down, but Alastor's arms locked around him.

"Put it on de list _later._ " Alastor amended, not wanting to let Angel out of his sight with such a realistic nightmare still fresh in his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alastor can't seem to get his brain to shut up.

The night was still. Peaceful for Hell's standards. Mostly quiet aside from a low white noise broken up by the occasional flip into a different channel of slightly different static. Angel Dust was asleep, sprawled on his back with the Radio Demon, Alastor, tucked to his side. Alastor was awake, having not succumbed to sleep so easily. 

Alastor's hand rested on Angel's sternum, feeling the spider's heart beating steadily under layers of fur and skin and bone. The rhythm of it held his attention idly for a while before a lack of focus led his mind to drift. How easy it would be to tuck his claws up under bone and touch that heart directly. His hand twitched, and he moved it away from Angel's chest to his stomach. That was worse, as the soft flesh there lacked bone to serve as protection. He moved his hand again to Angel's side, fingers slotting in the soft space between ribs where claws could slip through the gaps if he so chose. 

A small part of him wanted to act on those thoughts, as unwanted as they were. Another, bigger part was disgusted at himself for even considering it. Had it been anyone else he would have cheerfully eviscerated them with no regard for their pain, relishing it even. But this was Angel. Alastor could tear the world apart but not Angel. Never Angel.

He removed his hand from Angel entirely, sitting up and scooting a few inches away. Even if Angel trusted him enough to allow him so near while he slept, Alastor wasn't sure he trusted himself. He was a monster and he knew it. Everyone did. His own mother said he had the devil in him, even if she said so with love in her voice. Why Angel didn't see it, or chose to look past it, Alastor couldn't understand.

"Al?" Angel asked, waking when the warmth at his side left him cold. Alastor's ear turned toward him, but he didn't otherwise respond. Angel sat up, leaning toward the deer and reaching out toward him only to stop short at the shrill sound of microphone feedback.

"Don't." Alastor warned. "Don't touch me right now."

"Bad dream?" Angel guessed.

 _More like a waking nightmare_ , Alastor didn't say. How could he? How would Angel react knowing Alastor occasionally thought of the spider painted in his own blood, barbarically beautiful and completely repulsive all at once? He didn't even want to act on those thoughts, but the more he tried to ignore them the longer he ended up dwelling on them.

"I don't want to hurt you." Alastor said quietly, not about to go into any details but unwilling to shut Angel out entirely.

"You won't." Angel replied easily.

"How can you know?" Alastor asked, taken with the fact Angel sounded so sure.

"Cuz you just said you don't wanna." Angel snorted. "If you did, you'da done it already. Hell knows I've given you a million fuckin' chances."

Chances that Alastor never took, despite thinking about them. It always happened in times of closeness; Tender touches became scratches in his head, holding hands became broken fingers, hugs became strangling, and kisses became bites. Tucking his face into Angel's shoulder presented the urge to rip his throat out with his teeth. He hadn't acted on any of those, opting to pull away from the affections to avoid the violence. Even though he craved Angel's presence more than air he just couldn't process touch that came without pain.

But touch was how Angel loved, and Alastor couldn't deny him that. Time and food and music and the little conversations about nothing were all Alastor really needed but he knew Angel needed to feel wanted and touch was always how he understood that he was. Angel was understanding that Alastor had times where he hated being touched and the fact he let Angel touch him at all was proof that Alastor thought him special. Still, neither of them could really do without for long.

"I could." Alastor warned, sighing and letting the admission go. Better Angel hear it now than be surprised later. "Think 'bout guttin' you ev'ry damn day." 

"Yeah?" Angel asked. "I think about that too sometimes." 

Alastor turned to look at him, surprised.

"Fuckin' periods." Angel shrugged. "Rip my own uterus out if I thought it'd do any good."

"Don't--" Alastor began.

"Relax, I ain't gonna." Angel waved a lower hand defensively. "I'm makin' a point babe. I think about weird shit all the time. Whenever I have a smoke on the roof there's a little voice in the back of my head screamin' 'Jump you pussy!' Jump in front of a car, eat the fluffy pink shit inside the walls. Fuck, last time I watched you sewin' I kept thinkin' about jammin' one of the pins in my eye. That don't mean I'm gonna do it. Don't even mean that I _want_ to. Just my dumbass brain-train takin' ideas for a joyride off the rails."

A derailed train. Alastor hadn't thought of it like that, but then he'd always been a creature of impulse. Thinking always became doing, so he had been assuming the carnage in his mind regarding Angel was inevitable and that the fact he hadn't hurt the spider yet only meant that he was managing to keep control to delay it until another day. The train would crash but Alastor didn't have to be on it. He could just watch it pass, a witness but uninvolved.

After a few minutes Alastor had calmed enough to rejoin Angel, the two fitting together closely like the teeth of a zipper. Alastor's head came to rest on Angel's chest to hear the very beating that had stopped him from sleeping before. He sighed heavily, but he wasn't bothered as much.

"What'cha thinkin' about?" Angel asked brightly. 

Alastor hesitated but answered bluntly. "Touchin' y' heart…"

"Fuckin' sap." Angel said, pausing to yawn. "You do that every day already." 

Alastor chuckled and finally felt calm enough to join Angel in sleep after a few minutes.


End file.
